Plot:

Feyre has returned to the Spring Court, determined to gather information on Tamlin’s actions and learn what she can about the invading king threatening to bring her land to its knees. But to do so she must play a deadly game of deceit. One slip could bring doom not only for Feyre, but for everything-and everyone-she holds dear.

As war bears down upon them all, Feyre endeavors to take her place amongst the High Fae of the land, balancing her struggle to master her powers-both magical and political-and her love for her court and family. Amidst these struggles, Feyre and Rhysand must decide whom to trust amongst the cunning and lethal High Lords, and hunt for allies in unexpected places.

Review:

This was a very long audiobook! Was there any need?

There’s a common theme with the male characters, Maas has one archetype for all of them – she makes them do treacherous, seemingly unforgivable things and then reveals some tragic backstory that somehow alleviates them from all blame. BUT THEY STILL DID THE BAD THING? AND PEOPLE SELECTIVELY FORGET THAT?

Although the plot was fairly interesting and I enjoyed seeing a more in depth expansion of the Courts and the political tensions, the writing was amazingly put together u (there is only a certain amount of times I can sit through Rhys “purring” at people before I want to throw the book across the room – he’s not a fudging cat) and there was about 200 pages of book that didn’t need to be there – or that could have been used to talk about characters other than Feyre and Rhys (and their insatiable lust for each other – LIKE I GET IT ALREADY). I honestly think that Sarah’s editors have been paying less and less attention to her books as she gets more popular because her name sells so easily anyway and they feel like they can ease up on the quality control as a result.

The shining grace of this book was the Inner Circle and the development of Nesta and Elain – reading about all the relationships (new and old) between the characters was fascinating and I wish we got to see more of that. I do think that Sarah left many open ends, for lack of a better word, in order to continue with this series though.

Overall, it is really apparent there were SO many things that could have just been done better with this trilogy – in terms of characterisation, representation and writing.

3/5 Stars